Typewriter interview with Brad Neely
10 questions for the writer and cartoonist about hobbies, silly rituals, and more...
Hey y’all,
Brad Neely is a cartoonist and writer who’s worked on TV shows like China, IL and South Park. He got his start “when the internet was scruffier, weirder, and much freer,” with viral hits like “George Washington,” The Professor Brothers, and Wizard People, Dear Readers before writing his novel, You, Me, and Ulysses S Grant. His latest book is a collection of his wild cartoons called Creased Comics.
This typewriter interview was conducted via the magic of the United States Postal Service. (For a plain-text version with links and a playlist, see the P.S. below.)
![Describe a perfect day where you live. What I think I should say: a perfect day where I live is when all the people are healthy, happy, sated, heard, while feeling like they can self-define and still be a respected part of our shared community. What is selfishly true: A perfect day is waking up knowing no one is mad at me. I'm not late on anything. I'm not procrastinating. No one out there is waiting on me or on my apology. It's overcast, cold, fog around the palms, black cawing crows and green screechy parakeets [ACTUALLY PARROTS, DANG. KILLS THE RHYME] swooping in groups, Campbell's Cream of Chicken soup, coffee, cherry gummie candy, Bach solo piano works, and flights of useful epiphanies plucked from the air without damage. Later we order dinner, watch Jeopardy! and Lakers and the good guys win and LeBron gets to feel fantastic. I get kisses and I make my people laugh and I can see they feel loved and listened to by me. I sleep great feeling like if there is a god he's ok with how I'm turning out.](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!-SSw!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7bb721f6-701f-4d1b-8e78-0dbdf967c9c4_1024x1307.jpeg "Describe a perfect day where you live. What I think I should say: a perfect day where I live is when all the people are healthy, happy, sated, heard, while feeling like they can self-define and still be a respected part of our shared community. What is selfishly true: A perfect day is waking up knowing no one is mad at me. I'm not late on anything. I'm not procrastinating. No one out there is waiting on me or on my apology. It's overcast, cold, fog around the palms, black cawing crows and green screechy parakeets [ACTUALLY PARROTS, DANG. KILLS THE RHYME] swooping in groups, Campbell's Cream of Chicken soup, coffee, cherry gummie candy, Bach solo piano works, and flights of useful epiphanies plucked from the air without damage. Later we order dinner, watch Jeopardy! and Lakers and the good guys win and LeBron gets to feel fantastic. I get kisses and I make my people laugh and I can see they feel loved and listened to by me. I sleep great feeling like if there is a god he's ok with how I'm turning out.")
![I "smoke" a cigarette peneil in the studio. Do you perform any silly rituals when you're working? Wasting time. Allowing tangents to take over. Chasing a thought down to its root only to find that the deeper you go all thoughts are connected at the roots so you can't ever get to the bottom of a thing but rather you go round and round through the circuits of connectivity. I keep a thumbtack in my lips when drawing, so I feel you on that, Kleon. I do a lot of "problem busting" on the treadmill or stationary bike. My days are all variations of the same day so I live a loose ritual over and over that pretty much looks like my second answer to [the first question].](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!_Wn3!,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F0a5e6e04-8892-4671-947a-939c4771ab99_1024x1307.jpeg "I \"smoke\" a cigarette peneil in the studio. Do you perform any silly rituals when you're working? Wasting time. Allowing tangents to take over. Chasing a thought down to its root only to find that the deeper you go all thoughts are connected at the roots so you can't ever get to the bottom of a thing but rather you go round and round through the circuits of connectivity. I keep a thumbtack in my lips when drawing, so I feel you on that, Kleon. I do a lot of \"problem busting\" on the treadmill or stationary bike. My days are all variations of the same day so I live a loose ritual over and over that pretty much looks like my second answer to [the first question].")
Big thanks to Brad for being the 20th participant in this series of typewriter interviews.
Go out and get his books You, Me, and Ulysses S Grant and Creased Comics and catch up on the archives of his YouTube channel if you dare.
Thanks, as always, to paid subscribers who buy me the time to do all the email coordinating, typing, snail-mailing, scanning, transcribing, and editing that goes into them.
xoxo,
Austin
P.S. Here is a playlist of Brad’s most-played songs and a plain-text version of our interview with links:
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